I have a friend who runs an open table, weekly, game at a local pub. There’s normally between about 8-12 players. He’s been using the Fantasy Age system with the Freeport setting.
Recently he commented that he was looking for a new system to use (preserving the setting and characters as much as possible). He is after something a little lighter, that will play well with a large number of players and that has more horizontal, rather than vertical, character growth. Basically the game runs on the basis that you get XP for the session you attend, so there is a substantial level difference at times (he doesn’t want to change this mid-way through and screw over the more committed players who have attended on that basis).
My question is, does anyone have any good ideas about what systems might be worth checking out (noting that he isn’t big on Fate, and I don’t think playing Fate with 12 players would be very functional anyways)?